


An empty house is not a home

by Gorgeous Nerd (gorgeousnerd)



Category: Fringe
Genre: Community: help_japan, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/pseuds/Gorgeous%20Nerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia wants to talk about the other side, and she wants someone to listen.  (Post-Marionette AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	An empty house is not a home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sugangel7 for help_japan on LJ. Thanks to tsuxavier for the beta! The title comes from "Atlantic" by Keane. (Also on [LJ](http://chomalfoyfics.livejournal.com/43463.html) and [DW](http://firmament.dreamwidth.org/36509.html).)

Olivia's hand stopped on the door handle.

 _You could call,_ she thought, dragging her thumb across the grooves in the brass. But as the thought finished, she knew it wasn't a possibility. She stilled her fingers and pulled.

The lab was almost empty. Olivia didn't see Peter right away, quiet and still at a table. When she let the door shut behind her, he jerked, like he'd been half-asleep.

"Hey," he asked. "What's going on?"

"I've got a question for Walter. He around?"

Peter smiled wryly. "He's in the back. But he's high enough that he tried to count the molecules in my hair, so I'd give him a few minutes."

Olivia kept her polite smile up. "Probably a good idea."

There was tension to Peter's shoulders, a little bit of a restless twitch to his foot. Olivia was shifting her own weight between her feet, but she forced herself to stand still. She was very good at standing still.

Peter held a piece of paper in his hands. She leaned forward on the table to get a closer look.

"What's that?" she asked.

"This?" He held it up. "Picture of my parents. From this side."

She took the picture from him. Walter looked like he did now, with slightly different hair. But Peter's mom was different than she expected. There was something very...Peter about her.

"I wanted him to be Walter," Peter said.

Olivia blinked. "Sorry?"

"Walternate. When I went to the other side, I wanted him to be Walter."

"I don't understand."

A crash in the back stopped Peter's answer. He gave an apologetic smile and ran out of the room.

-

Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven...

Before, Olivia didn't do situps at night. It was strictly a wake-up activity, a way to get her heart rate up for the rest of her exercise.

But she was done with all of her paperwork. She'd stared at her ceiling in bed, stared at her TV from the couch, stared at her laptop from pretty much everywhere. Maybe it would help if she turned the lights out, but she won't.

Thirty-two, thirty-three...

She has room on the floor of her apartment, both in her bedroom and in the living room. She isn't worried about hitting her head or her elbows. When she was in the cell on the other side, she had to lie at an angle and stick her feet under the bed. Sometimes, she was interrupted. But she never let anyone watch. Not from inside the cell, or from the window. The cameras caught everything anyway.

Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.

Olivia rested on her knees, breathing hard. She let the sweat from her forehead drip to the floor, untouched.

-

"Hitting the coffee pretty hard, huh?"

Olivia took a sip as Peter sidled beside her. Behind him, she could see the station wagon through the windows, and what was probably Walter in the passenger's seat.

"Yeah," she said. "I didn't sleep very well."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Why'd you want him to be Walter?" Olivia asked.

"Sorry?"

"Yesterday. What you said in the lab."

"Right." He shrugged.

"So why'd you bring it up?"

"Because you'd understand."

Olivia could see Walter peeking out from the car. "Understand what?"

"Nothing, forget I said it."

She wasn't used to this Peter. For months, the only Peter she saw held nothing back, and she could read him like a book. It was the nice part of making someone up in your head. Maybe she'd known before what Peter would want to hear, but she'd lost the knowledge somewhere.

Still, she was a pretty good guesser. "Please. Tell me."

He tapped his fingers on the counter. "You were over there. You probably saw your family, right?"

Olivia nodded.

"So you're pretty much the only person in this world or the other who would get it. The differences."

The only person besides...

No. She was gone.

"She was different," Olivia said finally.

"Who?"

"My mother." Olivia shook her head. "The other Olivia's mother. She loved me...her. I could tell. But it wasn't right."

Peter's face didn't change expressions. But there was a weight to the air that hadn't been there before. Olivia sipped her coffee and pretended she didn't feel it.

"I'll see you at the lab," Olivia said, and walked out the door.

-

It had been Olivia's idea to do some tests.

"The FBI checked me over before I could be cleared for duty," she'd explained after Walter had come down from his high. "And everything's fine, but I'd like to be sure."

Walter was more than happy to agree. Peter, of course, had spoken up right away.

"Nothing out there," he'd told Walter. "Keep it somewhere close to reality, okay?"

"Peter, everything I do is real," Walter had answered. "And what isn't real, I make real."

But when Olivia returned the next day, Walter stuck to basic tests, and little more than the regular doctor had done. Peter was never far away, but he talked to Astrid and left them alone.

When the day ended, Peter turned to Walter and asked, "Do you think you can drive home by yourself?"

Walter beamed. "Of course. Will Astro be following?"

Peter and Astrid exchanged a look, but Walter said, "It's perfectly all right. I'd rather not get turned around today."

"I've got my keys," Astrid said.

Once they walked out, Olivia said, "Guess this means I'm taking you home."

"That was the idea."

Olivia was ready for Peter to start talking on the way to the car. But they'd driven a block before he started talking again.

"I gave it some thought. Why I wanted Walternate to be like Walter."

"Did you come up with anything?"

"I guess..." He sighed. "I wanted to be mad at Walter."

Olivia couldn't resist a small smile. "You need an excuse?"

"Guess not." Peter laughed a little. "I wanted him to be Walter, but...better. I wanted him to be the guy who worried about me every day, but also take care of himself."

"You know how that sounds?"

He cringed. "Believe me, I do."

"What about her? Your mom?"

"Which one?"

"Either. Both."

Peter's eyes widened, and he shook his head. "They were so much alike. No reason to be unhappy, right?"

Olivia turned a corner, and Peter's house came into view. The station wagon sat empty at the curb.

"You weren't happy?" she asked as she parked.

"Oh, I was," Peter said. "But it's like you said. It wasn't her."

He climbed out and shut the door behind him.

Olivia watched him jog toward the house. When he was inside, she turned toward the steering wheel.

Except.

She turned off the ignition.

At her knock, Peter opened the front door. The downstairs was dark except for light from the kitchen, and she could hear Walter mutter to himself.

"Can I come in?" Olivia asked.

"Yeah, of course." He shook his head and stepped away from the door. They climbed upstairs.

She hadn't remembered how small Peter's bedroom was. Probably because she hadn't been inside it much. It was bigger than the cell, and there was enough empty floor to pace on, but she still needed to stare at her feet for several minutes before speaking.

"They locked me up," she said when she could. "And I haven't really talked about it."

Peter held up his hands as the blood drained from his face. "You don't have to."

"But I _want_ to." She ran a hand over her hair. "I want someone to listen."

He sank on his bed and listened as she talked. She hadn't thought about it in advance, so it came out in pieces: the lines they'd drawn on her face to indicate where to cut into her, the pinch of the memories that weren't supposed to be in her head, the never-ending feeling to be ready and prepared and everything she wasn't.

When she'd said everything she meant to, Olivia cut off mid-word and stopped walking.

Peter stood slowly. He opened his mouth and closed it. He rubbed his chin and looked worried. She _knew_ he was worried.

Olivia hugged him. He hugged back.

-

Hours later, when she made it back to her apartment, she climbed into bed and turned off all the lights.

It was the best sleep of her life.


End file.
